Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Boosts Stake in Fortive Corporation $FTV

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Fortive Corporation (NYSE:FTV) by 30.1% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 3,041,097 shares of the technology company’s stock after acquiring an additional 702,927 shares during the period. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. owned about 0.96% of Fortive worth $167,899,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Dodge & Cox increased its holdings in Fortive by 28.4% during the 3rd quarter. Dodge & Cox now owns 42,595,794 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $2,086,768,000 after purchasing an additional 9,422,189 shares during the last quarter. Viking Global Investors LP grew its position in shares of Fortive by 28.7% during the third quarter. Viking Global Investors LP now owns 20,483,680 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,003,495,000 after buying an additional 4,571,056 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Fortive during the fourth quarter worth approximately $491,928,000. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Fortive by 1.3% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 8,787,747 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $483,327,000 after buying an additional 116,939 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC increased its stake in shares of Fortive by 55.2% in the third quarter. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC now owns 8,709,913 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $426,699,000 after buying an additional 3,096,711 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 94.94% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have commented on FTV. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “hold (c)” rating on shares of Fortive in a research note on Friday, May 22nd. Argus raised shares of Fortive from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $68.00 target price for the company in a research report on Monday, May 11th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on shares of Fortive from $58.00 to $65.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Monday, May 4th. Morgan Stanley increased their price target on shares of Fortive from $58.00 to $59.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on Fortive from $63.00 to $64.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 12th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, eleven have issued a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $61.62.

Fortive Price Performance

Shares of NYSE FTV opened at $61.30 on Monday. Fortive Corporation has a twelve month low of $46.34 and a twelve month high of $73.77. The company has a current ratio of 0.71, a quick ratio of 0.57 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43. The company has a market capitalization of $18.69 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 36.71 and a beta of 1.06. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $59.21 and a 200-day simple moving average of $56.75.

Fortive (NYSE:FTV) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 30th. The technology company reported $0.70 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.64 by $0.06. Fortive had a return on equity of 12.66% and a net margin of 12.84%.The business had revenue of $2.14 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.04 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.85 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 7.7% on a year-over-year basis. Fortive has set its FY 2026 guidance at 2.900-3.000 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Fortive Corporation will post 2.97 earnings per share for the current year.

Fortive declared that its Board of Directors has approved a share buyback program on Monday, May 4th that authorizes the company to buyback 20,000,000 shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the technology company to repurchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are generally an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling at Fortive

In other news, SVP Peter C. Underwood sold 47,557 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $60.81, for a total value of $2,891,941.17. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president directly owned 87,780 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,337,901.80. The trade was a 35.14% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Company insiders own 0.65% of the company’s stock.

About Fortive

Fortive Corporation (NYSE: FTV) is a diversified industrial technology company headquartered in Everett, Washington. The company was created through a spin‑off from Danaher Corporation in 2016 and has since focused on building a portfolio of professional instrumentation and industrial technology businesses. In 2020 Fortive completed a further portfolio separation with the spin‑off of Vontier, concentrating Fortive’s activities on higher‑margin instrumentation, software and services.

Fortive’s operations center on professional test and measurement, sensing and monitoring, software‑enabled solutions, and lifecycle services that support industrial and commercial customers.